Psychosanity
by Snowflake Flower
Summary: She was always a strong-willed person, but what happens when Ino is pushed over the edge? What happens when Shikamaru discovers he can't touch her anymore? Rape!fic. ShikaIno. Insane!Ino.
1. Prologue

**Psychosanity**

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**Prologue**

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The door opened, silently without a single creak, and in the darkness Shikamaru could see a figure slip out from the room. He was stocky, a male probably in his thirties. There was no discernible weapon on him, but it was hard to tell when the hallway was pitch black. Not that blackness was a bad thing, no, Shikamaru would never complain about that. Because it meant he had total – _total_ – control.

"Kagemane is a success," the young jounin whispered into the dark, pitifully easy for his shadows to grab hold of the man in front of the door. Something glowed behind him, lighting the hallway in a dim, blue light. It was Hinata, her hand encased in a circle of blue chakra, brought to the level of her eyes. It revealed the finer details of the man, his body stiff from Shikamaru's Kagemane. "Where is she?" Shikamaru asked, his voice low and dark. The man laughed, sweat dripping down his temple.

"Close enough to touch, but too far to reach," the man mocked, a sickly grin spreading over his face. Shikamaru's face darkened more in the shadows flickering across his face.

"Hinata," he said curtly, but she was a step ahead of him. Her byakugan was already activated; her lips were pursed in a thin line.

"Yamanaka-san is beyond the door," the quiet girl murmured, and Shikamaru stepped forward, his footfalls silent. He cancelled Kagemane just as he came toe-to-toe with the man blocking his path, who was gasping a little from the abrupt release of the jutsu. Shikamaru's arm shot out, his fingers wrapping around the fat column of the pig's neck, squeezing.

"What did you do to her?" His voice was still low; patient. Hinata and his two other teammates, Sakura and Sasuke, waited with hard eyes behind him. The man choked a little from the pressure of the fingers, but smiled toothily.

"What any man would do when confronted with a beautiful girl on a bed—" he was cut off, gasping for breath as Shikamaru _squeezed_, his dark eyes flashing with something terrible. He could've crushed the little twit's neck so _easily_ if it weren't for the firm hand that fell on his wrist.

"Nara." Sasuke's tone was cold and professional. Shikamaru glared at him for the slightest moment, but eased his grip and flicked his wrist to the side. It sent the man flying into the wall, his head cracking harshly on the drywall. Shikamaru knew the bastard wasn't dead; he didn't exert enough force for that to be an instant kill. But it did knock him out, and while Sasuke bent down to take the care to tie him up, Shikamaru just opened the door and stepped into the room where Ino was held captive.

The first thing he noticed was the smell.

His fingers curled into a fist. (_Sweat and sex_.) He saw her sprawled on the bed, her beautiful hair tangled into knots. (_Blood and urine_.) Her skin was littered with bruises, cuts, drying blood, and worst of all—

"Fucking scum," Shikamaru heard Sakura swear. He agreed silently (vehemently) in his head, stepping forward and touching one spot on her naked body that wasn't splattered with semen. It was only the barest graze – a flicker of touch – but it was enough for her to curl her knees further into her chest. A silent whimper escaped from her lips, her boney limbs shaking with fear and her mangled hair covered her face.

"Please… please no more," she pleaded, and Shikamaru flinched, stepping back. Hinata took his spot almost immediately, crouching beside the bed but not touching the blonde.

"Yamanaka-san," she murmured gently, kindly. "We are not here to hurt you. We are here to help." And Shikamaru saw Ino's head shift, her hair falling to the side as she peered at Hinata with a set of glassy eyes.

"H-help?" Ino whispered, and Shikamaru dug his fingers into his palm, willing himself not to reach out and sweep her into his arms where he could hide her for the rest of her life. Hinata nodded, her slim, pale, dainty hand reaching out and hovering in front of Ino's eyes.

"Yes. We are rescuing you," Hinata said softly, and Ino blinked her glassy eyes once.

"He said no one would come," she replied, her throat raspy and hoarse. Shikamaru wasn't sure if it was from a lack of use, or too much of it. He hoped it was not the latter.

Hinata smiled patiently. "He was wrong, Yamanaka-san. We are sorry it took so long, but we are here now." Ino's gaze flickered from the hand to Hinata's eyes. She seemed to be debating something in her mind. A tentative smile spread over her lips, but it was painful and sad and heartbreaking and Shikamaru wanted it to go away and give him back Ino's real smile—

"So does that mean we're going home?" Ino asked, and her voice was so child-like and full of hope that Shikamaru struggled to keep his tears at bay. Hinata nodded, slowly reaching for the bag slung over her shoulder.

"Yes. We are going home, Yamanaka-san. I have some clothes for you to wear—" she was cut off by Ino suddenly sitting up, backing into the headboard with wide, frightened eyes. She was hugging herself, her head shaking from side-to-side.

"No, no, no, no," Ino chanted maniacally. "No clothes, no clothes. He doesn't like it when I wear clothes, no he doesn't. Clothes get in the way, he says, they get in the way." She continued like that, shaking her head and curling further into herself. It stunned everyone in the room, seeing such a strong-willed woman so broken; so shattered. But Hinata was the quickest to recover, and she took a slow step forward.

"He is no longer here, Yamanaka-san. He will not hurt you anymore," Hinata told her, holding the folded clothes in her hands. Ino threw her head back and let out a shrill laugh, a few greasy locks dangling in her face. Her eyes, _god her eyes_. They were wild and chaotic and maniac, dancing with bitter amusement. It was then, staring into her eyes, that Shikamaru knew the Ino he said good-bye to three weeks ago was not the same one he was looking at now. She was a poor imitation; a shell of shattered, broken pieces.

"Not here? _Not here?_ He will always be here, Hina-chan, yes he will, he will never leave," Ino giggled, running her hands through her disgusting hair, pulling and scrunching and clawing. "Never leave, never leave, never leave—"she continued chanting again, and Shikamaru wanted to look away. He wanted to turn around and forget this night; he wanted to erase Sakura's memory, and Hinata's memory, and Sasuke's memory, and cocoon Ino in his apartment where there would be twenty-four hour surveillance—

But he could not.

"Sakura." The pink-haired kunoichi jumped at the sound of his voice. Everyone heard him except for Ino, rocking back and forth on the bed, pulling and tugging at her hair. "Knock her out." Sakura's eyes widened, but then they turned flat and blank and unreadable and Shikamaru knew she had tapped into her kunoichi persona, the one that forced her to detach her feelings and emotions from her actions. She walked over to the other side of the bed, her hand quick as it laid one firm chop onto Ino's head. The blonde fell over without much fuss, her eyes blissfully closed. Hinata was quick and sure, unflinching as she dressed Ino in a simple pair of pants and shirt. Sakura stepped aside as Shikamaru reached out, lifting the blonde into his arms.

He took that moment to stare at her sleeping face. It was peaceful and serene; the opposite of what it had looked like only seconds before. It was beautiful, he decided, this expression. Beautiful and right.

Sasuke stepped out into the hall, flinging their captive over his shoulder. Sakura was behind him, her gloved hand tightened in a shaking fist as she glared at the unconscious figure. Shikamaru figured it was probably best Sasuke carried the target. Sakura would kill him if she got her hands on him. He, however, was not so merciful.

Hinata took up the rear of the formation as he stepped out of the room with Ino. She was feather-light in his arms, and the shadow-user wished for the umpteenth time that she wasn't. But he did not dwell on it, as he was prone to doing, and fell into step behind Sakura. The four of them were silent as they left the hideout, leaping into the trees; so silent they were nothing but shadows in the night.

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TBC**


	2. The Mission

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**WARNING! MILD SHIKATEMA!**

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**Psychosanity**

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**Chapter 1: The Mission**

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She wondered where it all went wrong.

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"Good morning beautiful sunshine!" Ino crowed enthusiastically, swinging the drapes on her windows open, letting the sunlight shine into her room. She was all ready for the start of a new day, her hair brushed to perfection, her purple kunoichi clothes freshly washed and smelling of pine and wood. Downstairs, Ino could smell her mother's delicious eggs sizzling on the frying pan, and her mouth watered. It was such a wonderful day for eggs, heck, it was a wonderful day to be alive!

Ino skipped happily down the stairs, humming a nameless, cheery tune as she dropped into a chair at the table. "Morning!" she chirped, her dad peeking at her from behind the morning newspaper and her mom turning to look over her shoulder. They were both smiling, amused at her chipper mood and letting it infect them in all its joyfulness.

"Good morning princess," Inoichi chuckled, taking a sip of his tea as he went back to the news. His wife plunked an empty plate down in front of his daughter, filling it to the brim with scrambled eggs and buttered toast. A glass of orange juice was offhandedly placed beside it, and Ino grinned as she grabbed a fork. "So what are you doing today?" he asked, flipping the page and half-heartedly reading the article about the newly improved Fuma Shuriken.

"Not sure yet," Ino shrugged. "Probably kidnap Sakura and start planning my birthday party." Inoichi hummed, shuffling his paper.

"That's nice." Ino's mother rolled her eyes at his inattentiveness, coming to sit at the table with a cup of coffee. Ino just smiled at her mom, taking a bite out of her toast. It was nothing new for Yamanaka Inoichi to ignore them while he was perusing the newspaper, just as it was nothing new for Ino to comb her hair one hundred times and for her mother to take obsessive detail with a custom flower arrangement.

"So how many people are you inviting?" Ino's mother asked, her hands snug around her mug. Ino shrugged again, her cheeks puffy with food.

"Around fifteen. Sakura's gonna drag Naruto, who's gonna drag Sasuke. And then Shikamaru and Chouji are coming too. I invited Kiba, who will probably make Shino come. And then Hinata's coming, and Neji will have to come too as her chaperone. He'll take Tenten obviously because they're dating, and then Lee will feel neglected so I'm inviting him. Plus my co-workers from the interrogation unit. Oh, and of course Kurenai-san and little Asuma."

Ino's mother stifled her amused smile as she watched her daughter juggle from eating and talking, her pauses for when she stuffed a new piece of egg or bread into her mouth. She was so nonchalant about her eighteenth birthday party, meticulously listing all the people who were going to be there instead of what expensive new outfit she wanted to wear to it. Her little girl had changed from the vain, prissy princess of her preteen years into a blossoming woman with compassion and open-heartedness. She still fussed about her appearance and flaunted her 'fab bod', but it seemed more like a show than a genuine concern of visage. Underneath the underneath, indeed.

"Sounds like it'll be a fun party," Inoichi commented, finally putting down his newspaper and shooting a toothy grin at his daughter. Ino adopted a haughty expression, putting her fork down to flip her hair.

"Duh! Of course daddy! Any party _I_ plan is always going to be a blast." Inoichi and his wife chuckled at Ino's overconfidence, finding it endearing instead of narcissistic and exaggerated like most people. Then again, only Ino's closest friends really found that particular trait of hers endearing, mostly because they knew it was a front used to catch people off guard. It was infinitely easier to subdue someone who underestimated you instead of someone who overestimated you.

"Anyways, I'm going!" Ino exclaimed, dumping her dirty dishes in the sink and prancing down the stairs, out the door. She faintly heard her mother call from the kitchen, reminding her about her shifts at the flower shop in the afternoon, but Ino was long out of earshot by then. She was skipping happily down the street, humming that same nameless tune from before. A few people looked at her funny, but that didn't bother her. So what if she seemed like a weirdo, prancing along the street? She was having fun, damn it, and that's all that frickin' mattered!

"Good moooorning!" she shouted, waving her hand as she spotted Shikamaru and Chouji up ahead. The two were walking along the street with dango's in hand, the latter with more than the former, but that wasn't unusual. "Shikamaaaaruuuu, Chooooujiiii!" She drew out syllables of their name at the top of her lungs, catching even more attention. Chouji munched complacently on his dango, but Shikamaru heaved a sigh as he lazily turned around to greet her.

"Mornin' Ino," Chouji said, his voice muffled a little by the dango.

"Don't speak with your mouth full," Ino reprimanded him absentmindedly, the retort more of an automatic response than anything. He 'hmm'ed in response, still chewing. Shikamaru held his one stick of dango loosely, inclining his head at his teammate.

"Morning," he grudgingly greeted. Ino beamed at him, glad that he wasn't grunting at her anymore, as was his usual morning greeting. He still looked fairly sleepy but it wasn't unusual for him to be up so early. He was, once again, the first of the Konoha 12 to make it to jonin. The Hokage, Tsunade-sama, had simply handed him the qualification when he had enough experience, wanting her prodigal strategist in an easily accessible position. The lazy Nara had taken the promotion with a sighed, "Troublesome" and just the slightest of pink cheeks when Ino tackled him at his congratulatory party. She was, naturally, ecstatic after hearing the news.

"So, so, are you going to the MD?" she asked them, locking her arms through theirs and dragging them towards the Mission Designation building. They followed her insistent tugging, knowing that it was fruitless to argue with the blonde kunoichi. "I just finished a mission like two days ago, so I still have one more day of rest before I get another one. So after I drop you guys off I'm going to visit Sakura so we can plan for my birthday party next month. Oh! Which reminds me," she slipped her arms free from theirs and spun to look at the two of them. "September. Twenty-third. My birthday. Party. Be there!"

Shikamaru and Chouji grinned at the finger she levelled at their faces and nodded. Ino beamed at their wordless agreement, bouncing on the back of her heels in excitement. This party was gonna rock!

"See you later Ino," Chouji said, waving as he and Shikamaru headed for the front door of the building. His best friend was stopped when Ino grabbed onto his arm, her face a bit panicked.

"Wait, wait! I need to talk to you Shikamaru," she told him, and he quirked an eyebrow at her but shrugged. Shikamaru motioned for Chouji to go on ahead of him and turned to his former teammate.

"What's up?' he asked. Ino twiddled with her thumbs.

"Okay, so I figured I should ask now since the subject is sort of on it…" she babbled, still fidgeting, "but what do you want for your birthday?" Her blue eyes looked up at him, pleading and hopeful and Shikamaru blinked in mild surprise.

"My birthday?" he repeated, frowning and scratching his head. Troublesome. There wasn't really anything he wanted.

"Yeah, your birthday. You know that thing that comes before mine?" Ino teased. Shikamaru frowned down at her, disgruntled at the stab at his intelligence. Ino grinned. "C'mon Shika, there must be _something_ you want. Maybe a visit from a certain Sand kunoichi? Eh? Eh?" She jabbed her elbow into his ribs, and he grunted in discomfort, flushing red. Temari no Sabaku was the ambassador of Suna and often visited on diplomacy missions. Shikamaru was always assigned to show her around, and the two of them had formed an… odd… friendship. Most of it was comprised of Temari flirting with Shikamaru, who scowled and grunted and frowned and blushed.

"We're just allies," Shikamaru muttered, and Ino grinned.

"Of looove, you mean." She winked at him. "No worries, Shikamaru, I've got it all covered! Temari has to do her monthly visit to Konoha, and it'll be the week of our birthdays, so other than seeing your secret love bug," Shikamaru twitched, "what do you want as my present to you?"

"How do you know when she's going to be here?" he asked suspiciously, avoiding the question. Ino struck a pose.

"Obviously because I'm a super spying machine!" she boasted. Shikamaru raised a skeptical eyebrow and she deflated. "Sakura told me." He smirked in triumph. But Ino regained her bearings and straightened, narrowing her eyes at the jonin. "Shi-ka-ma-ru!" she hissed, jabbing his flak jacket with her finger, "Stop avoiding the question! The hell do you want for your birthday?" Shikamaru sighed, scratching his head.

"I dunno," he shrugged. Ino let out a frustrated growl, throwing her hands up in the air.

"I swear if you're saying that just because you're too lazy to think…" she warned, sticking another finger in his face. He stared apathetically down at it, almost going cross-eyed. She held that stance for another second, before her anger steamed away and she took a deep, calming breath. "Go on, get to work," she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. He smirked, turning and walking away.

"See you later, Ino." She sighed at his retreat, watching him disappear behind the doors. Her arms crossed protectively over her chest, nails biting into her skin as she willed back the tears.

"Bye Shikamaru."

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"We can have it at the Uchiha mansion," Sakura suggested, and Ino's mouth dropped before she started laughing hysterically.

"The _Uchiha's_ house? Forehead, did someone mess with your brain in your last mission of something? Why the hell would Uchiha Sasuke let me have my eighteenth bash, which is undoubtedly going to be filled with drunken hormonal teenagers and lots of loud music and junk food, at _his_ house?" Sakura pouted, offended as she straightened up in her chair.

"Well I _am_ sorta kinda his _GIRLFRIEND_ you know," she reminded Ino, sniffing. Ino still chortled with laughter, attracting attention from the other customers in the quaint outdoor patio of the café they frequented.

"First of all," Ino giggled, holding up a finger, "you guys have only been dating, what, three weeks? That's hardly enough time as a significant other for you to have any sort of power over what his house is used for. Second," she started quickly, seeing Sakura about to protest, "what makes you think I wanna get anywhere _near_ the residence of that son of a hunk of ice?" Sakura sputtered indignantly, trying to argue that her boyfriend was not born from a block of frozen water. Ino just flipped her hair, leaning back from the table.

"Okay, fine then," Sakura relented, glowering at the blonde, "where do _you_ wanna have the party?" Ino smirked.

"Chouji's house."

"Chouji's house? Why?"

Ino rolled her eyes and straightened up. "Duh, because Chouji's mom makes the tastiest food, not to mention they have a _huge_ living room. Every time I go there I almost mistake it for a friggin' banquet hall," Ino ranted. Sakura made a thoughtful noise, learning something new about a fellow shinobi, and jotted that down in the book they were using to plan Ino's eighteenth.

"Okay so that takes care of the food and the location then, huh?" Sakura murmured, the question rhetorical. "Alright, who are you inviting?" Ino shrugged.

"The usual, I guess. The Rookies plus Hinata's cousin Neji and his two teammates." Sakura looked up from her writing, a wry smile placed in Ino's direction.

"Ino, I don't think we can really be called the rookies anymore," she chuckled. Some of their friends had already taken S-rank missions as ANBU, and most were already elevated to jonin. In fact, other than Ino, only Hinata and Kiba were still chunin. But Ino just shrugged. They would always be "the Rookies" to her.

"Aside from them, two of my co-workers from the interrogation unit and Kurenai-san and little Asuma," Ino finished, folding her arms on the table and resting her chin on them. Sakura looked up from writing, quirking a brow.

"Only fifteen people?" she asked. Ino's parties tended to number more around the forties or fifties. Ino frowned at her best friend's tone of voice, and sighed as she thought a little more.

"You can invite the Sand Trio too, I guess. Might as well have them along for the ride." A shadowed look came over Ino's face, and Sakura's dampened in worry. She reached out and gripped her friend's arm comfortingly.

"Ino," Sakura trailed off, biting her lip. "Ino, you should tell him." The blonde reared back in her seat, snatching her hand back and glaring at her pink-haired friend.

"Sakura, we've already talked about this," she snapped, standing up. "He likes Temari. Telling him would only strain our relationship, and I _really_ like where our relationship is right now." She threw a couple ryo on the table and stalked off, trying to ignore Sakura who followed after her with narrowed green eyes.

"Ino, stop lying. You don't _like_ where you are with him right now, you're just pulling back because you're scared!" Sakura accused, jumping a bit when Ino whirled on her.

"So what if I am? Is that a crime? I don't know about you but it seems just a _little_ bit stupid to tell someone you like them when you clearly know they like someone else!" Huffing, Ino turned back and kept walking, alternately spreading her fingers and curling them into fists. She was stopped momentarily by Sakura's hand on her shoulder, turning to meet darkened eyes.

"It's better to tell him now before you never have a chance at all," she said gravely. "We are shinobi. Every breath we take could be our last." Ino's lips tightened and she shrugged the roseate's hand off her shoulder.

"Then I will gladly take my last breath," she replied. Sakura scowled.

"You'll regret it," she warned. Above, a bird swooped past and dropped a scroll into Ino's waiting hand, and she smiled bitterly.

"We'll see then, won't we?" Her chuckle was dark as she held up the scroll that represented a direct summons from the Hokage. Sakura sucked in a sharp breath; a direct summon from the Hokage was almost always about a mission, and always one A-ranked and higher. Sakura knew that Ino had gone on two A-ranked missions before, but this mission could be an S-rank. She wasn't sure if her friend was ready for an S-rank.

"Ino—" Sakura started.

"Gotta go, Forehead Girl," Ino cut off, gripping the scroll tightly in her hand and taking to the rooftops. This was the first time she had been summoned by the Hokage; there was no way she was going to keep her waiting.

Ino made it to the Hokage's office in about five minutes, nodding to the bodyguard at the door before entering. Tsunade, the Godaime Hokage, was seated behind her desk, looking thoroughly disgruntled as she shuffled through a mountain of paperwork. Ino bit back a smile. Their Lady Hokage was sort of known for her utter hate of paperwork, and her utter love of sake, the latter of which she was forbidden to have while doing the former.

"Hokage-sama, good morning," Ino greeted, bowing after shutting the door behind her. Tsunade looked up from her work, brightening as she found a distraction from her paperwork.

"Yamanaka Ino, just the person I wanted to see. Come in, come in," she urged, beckoning with her hand. Ino stepped forward, stopping in the centre of the room, just a few feet away from the Hokage's desk. Her hands were folded neatly behind her back, and she stood straight and tall, awaiting further instruction. Tsunade dug around her desk before successfully finding a scroll. She unravelled it, her posture shifting seriously. "Yamanaka Ino, this mission has been classified as an A-rank. You will be undertaking this mission alone, are there any objections so far?"

Ino stiffened. This was the point where a ninja could opt to back out of a mission they deemed may be too difficult for them. And the mission certainly seemed daunting to the blonde-haired chunin, who had never taken on an A-rank alone. But she squared her shoulders and shook her head. "No Hokage-sama, I do not have any objections." Tsunade nodded, pleased. She rolled up the mission scroll, throwing it at Ino who caught it easily.

"The target is Kuro Yenmaru," the Hokage started as Ino opened the scroll. "Most know him as a wealthy businessman. He rose to riches fairly quickly after entering the industry, and there are rumours that speculate he has a hand in underground dealings. Normally his existence is unthreatening to us, but there have been whispers that he plans an invasion on Konoha. I want you to verify the facts and report back to me. You have exactly one week, starting tomorrow. Dismissed."

Ino bowed to Tsunade, the scroll wrapped tight and tucked into the med-pouch on her waist. She started to exit the room, but Tsunade's voice drove her back. "Hold on a second, Yamanaka." Ino turned, puzzled.

"Yes, Hokage-sama?" she asked, and Tsunade smirked.

"I've been looking through your track record and I noticed you have a high success rate for seduction missions. If you successfully complete this mission I will appoint to you the title of Tokubetsu Jonin. Is that agreeable?" Ino's mouth dropped, and for a moment she thought the Hokage was messing with her. But there was an entirely serious look to the older woman, and Ino's face brightened in a wide smile.

"Y-yes Hokage-sama! I am very agreeable to it!" Ino bowed once more, a deep bow of respect before almost running out of the office, glowing with excitement. Wait 'til she told Sakura!

Ino burst out into the street, her previous feelings of bitterness gone. All the joy from the morning started rushing back, and Ino could feel it bubbling over inside of her. She let out an enthusiastic "WOO!" in the middle of the marketplace, scaring a few people. They moved aside for her as she barrelled through them, a grin sparked on her face and her ponytail swinging as she ran, full-speed, in a completely random direction. '_I might get promoted!_' she squealed in her head, slowing from a run to a skip. Oh what a wonderful, wonderful day!

Remaining a chunin was always something that bothered Ino, ever since she started to notice how more and more of her friends were being elevated to jonin. She tried not to let it bother her too much, but it was inevitably a muted presence in the back of her mind. Was she not good enough? Not strong enough? Not smart enough? The thoughts plagued her day after day, some days more insistent than others. It didn't help that she regularly saw her two teammates and Sakura, all three of which had been appointed jonin before her.

Ino didn't feel so bad being a chunin because she wasn't alone. Hinata and Kiba were still stuck at the same place as her, but that didn't make the reality any less harder to bear. It just meant she had people to share it with. Kiba was probably as anxious as her to get promoted, but Hinata seemed quite comfortable where she was, working with Iruka-sensei at the academy. Her dad seemed okay with it too, surprisingly. He was actually more concerned with teaching her to run the clan.

But Ino wasn't happy being just a chunin; not when she knew so many of her friends were out risking their lives on more dangerous missions. Shikamaru had actually been ANBU for a short time, donning a deer mask and getting the spiral tattooed on his forearm. The first time she had seen it, Ino cried in her room for days. No one knew, of course, because Ino acted nothing but proud in the daylight. But in her bed, at night, she would cry silently into her pillow, praying that he came home safe.

Sakura was probably feeling that way too, come to think of it. Both Naruto and Sasuke decided to take a few S-rank missions as ANBU. It was more of an on-again, off-again thing, where if they were needed they'd go but otherwise just took normal jonin missions. Ino was just grateful that Shikamaru flat out refused to do anymore ANBU work after his fourth mission. Tsunade had asked him why, but he didn't tell her. Instead, he went back to being strategist and making plans for the more dangerous missions, maybe going along on said mission if he felt it would bring the survival percentage up.

Ino had talked to a lot of the people who were granted the honour of being on a team with Shikamaru. They had nothing but praises, singing songs about his brilliance and how he turned an impossible situation into a complete success. Too many shinobi owed him for saving their lives, and Ino was sure that he if he petitioned to be the Hokage that second, he'd get the job. But of course, Shika was a lazy butt and was content where he was, serving under the Hokage as her Head Strategist alongside his father, Shikaku.

As strange as it sounded, Ino wanted to make jonin not just because she was afraid of being left behind, but also because just _once_ she'd like to go on a mission with Shikamaru. They were on Team Ten together, yeah, true, but the lazy genius had grown up since then. Ino wanted to know what he was like now; how powerful had he gotten? There were even whispers that he was going to be put in the bingo book, an idea that sent fear clutching at every part of Ino's body.

But she was not going to think about it. No way. Today was for her. Today was for celebrating her soon-to-be promotion! Because really, how could this mission go wrong? Fairly standard, just spying and gathering facts and information. It wasn't like she had to assassinate him if he was guilty of planning an invasion on Konoha. She just had to hang around him for a week and then bolt. Easy peazy!

"What's up with you?"

Ino shrieked, spinning around and holding a kunai to someone's face. The person stared at her like she lost a head, the point of the kunai levelled at his nose. Ino laughed awkwardly, brushing her hair back as she put her weapon away, waving weakly at the person who surprised her.

"Hi Shika," she greeted. The lazy strategist stuffed his hands in his pockets, shoulders slouching.

"Hey," he mumbled. "S'up?" Ino looked back at him, mildly surprised that he was asking. He was usually content to remain silent, letting her carry the conversation and berate him for being rude and not asking her how she was.

"Oh, um, not much," Ino said nonchalantly, before springing on him with a wide, toothy smile. "Except I'm going to be promoted!" she squealed. Shikamaru gave a shout of surprised, toppling backwards on the grass when Ino crashed into him. The surprise at Shikamaru's sudden disappearance melted away, and all the joy and excitement came rushing back. Shikamaru could feel it on his chest, where Ino was propped up and grinning down at him, her eyes sparkling.

"What do you mean promoted?" Shikamaru wheezed, sitting up and pulling Ino with him. His eyes were dark with concern, but Ino didn't pick up on that as she giggled and pulled out the scroll summon from the Hokage, waving it in his face.

"Hokage-sama says that if I complete this A-rank mission, then she'll promote me to Tokubetsu Jonin!" Ino jerked her hand back as Shikamaru tried to grab it, his eyebrows furrowed with anger. "Hey! Shikamaru, stop that! You know missions B-rank and up are confidential," she reminded him, twisting her body to dangle the scroll farther away from his searching hands. He stopped and grabbed at her arms, his naturally longer than hers, and she curled her arms into her chest, turning her back to him, falling to the ground. Shikamaru grunted as he tried to wedge his hands between the ground and her chest, growling when the scroll still managed to evade capture.

"You know that I probably planned the mission strategy for this thing," he said, breath puffing against the back of her ear. Ino tried not to shiver at the sensation, trying to throw his heavier body off of hers. She succeeded for the slightest second, but that was all she needed to dart out of his grip. Unfortunately, Shikamaru's speed had increased from the last time Ino trained with him, and he grabbed her wrist, yanking her to his chest. A steel arm banded around her back, trapping her two arms as he plucked the scroll from her straining fingers.

"Shikamaru!" she snarled, but he paid her no mind, flicking the scroll open and skimming through the kanji. She sighed in helplessness, knowing that it was fruitless to continue fighting when he was already speed reading through her mission file. Damn geniuses.

"You're taking the mission _alone_?" he growled, head swivelling to look at her. Ino glared at him. Yeah, sure, he totally planned the mission strategy for this. She could see it in the way he didn't remember planning to send a kunoichi_ out on a mission by herself_.

"Yeah, so?" she replied snarkily. Shikamaru released her; his eyes were dark with fury. She almost shivered with the intensity of it, washing through her body, rippling beneath her skin. That was the first time he ever looked at her like that.

"Ino, this is an A-class mission! You'll die out there!" he argued, and Ino's cheeks flushed hot with rage. Excuse you?

"I'm not a weakling, Shikamaru!" she told him, snatching the mission scroll out of his hand and rolling it back up. "And this isn't my first A-rank either, if you've forgotten. I'll be _fine_." She got up to leave, not wanting to deal with his sexist and overprotective attitude. That was always how it was in Team Ten. Put Ino in the least dangerous position because she's a girl, because she's the medic nin, because she's the weakest _fucking link_. Well heads up deer's ass; this boar isn't gonna just sit by and take it anymore.

"Damn it, Ino, I know it's not your first A-rank but you've never done one alone before. What if something happens? You need back-up," he urged. Ino whirled on him, her eyes heavy with warning when she saw the look on his face.

"Ooh no," she protested. "There is no way you're coming with me, Shikamaru, I am going to do this _by myself_!" She turned on her heel and stalked down the hill. It was funny; she never even noticed that her feet had unconsciously taken her to Shikamaru's coveted cloud-watching spot. The Nara had followed her hastily down the hill, grabbing her shoulder to stop her in her tracks.

"It's dangerous," he reiterated.

"I'm a kunoichi," she replied. "This is what I do, Shikamaru. Hell, this is what you do! We risk our lives all the time; jonin's are always going on missions alone so why should it be any different for me?" She sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingers. Shikamaru was motionless in front of her, his fists shaking at his sides. Ino looked up at him, the anger swept away by a softer blue. "I need to do this Shikamaru. I need to stop feeling like I'm being left behind."

"You're not—," Shikamaru started, but then Ino looked at him, her face so reminiscent of that day when Team Ten lost its most important member, and his voice died in his throat.

"I am," she whispered. "I promised Asuma-sensei that I wouldn't lose to Sakura in ninjutsu, and damn me to hell if I don't keep that promise. I _have_ to do this; let me do this." Ino's blue eyes were pleading as she stared up at the man she wished she could have, and he was staring down at her with a pinched, tight look.

"Fine," he bit out, understanding her need to honour Asuma's last words. "But I still don't like this." Ino grinned brightly, jumping up and hugging him.

"You don't need to," she told him, letting go and winking with her one visible eye. "No worries, Shika. I'll be back today of next week, and we can drag Chouji out to yakiniku to celebrate my promotion!" Shikamaru sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "When are you gonna leave?"

"Tomorrow morning," Ino replied, "at the break of dawn." Shikamaru nodded.

"I'll come see you off." She punched him in the shoulder, smiling.

"You better, lazy ass."

* * *

The next morning, she left with a smile and a wave, the sunrise casting orange glows across her skin. There was a moment where she looked at him with some unfathomable emotion in her eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it came. Shikamaru was too swept up in her sudden embrace to really give any thought to it, but all that mattered was that it was there.

It was there.

* * *

_She wondered where it all went wrong._

* * *

Blood pooled from the corner of her lips, staining her fingers and filling her with dread. Shakily, she formed the cancellation seal and opened her eyes to a man's face grinning darkly above her own.

"Good morning beautiful sunshine. Did you have a nice sleep?"

**

* * *

TBC**


	3. Everything Nice

**Psychosanity**

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**Chapter 2: Everything Nice**

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_

* * *

Nothingness._

_There was nothing. _

_Nothing, nothing, nothing to hurt her, no pain, no pain here. _

_Nothing._

_Just nothing. _

_Just black. _

_Blackness and nothing. _

_Black and shadow… shadows… shadows?_

_Shadows were nice. They weren't nothing, but they were black and nice. _

_(__**Absence of light, intangible, untouchable—**__) _

_Shadows were nice. They couldn't hurt her. They would never hurt her. The shadows hated her pain. They'd make it go away; they'd make the pain go away. Go away, go away, go away!_

_Shadows were nice._

_Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. _

_Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. _

_Nothing, nothing, nothing… something? Something… something touching. Touching, something touching. No, no touching! Touch hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts so bad and make it stop! Make it stop make it stop make it stop I don't want it I don't want it leave leave leave LEAVE—_

* * *

The medic nin jumped back as his patient's eyes snapped open and she started to scream. Her body struggled against the wires attached to her body, opening wounds beneath the bandages. Machines were going crazy behind her, their alarming beeps drowned out by her bloodcurdling screams. The medic scrambled to sedate her but was knocked back into the wall by something intangible, swept off his feet before he even laid a hand on her.

"What's happening?" a woman demanded to know as she barged into the room, eyes locking on the patient struggling against the wires.

"I don't know," the medic stammered, bleeding from his head as he scrambled onto his feet. "She just woke up screaming." The older medic narrowed her eyes and went towards the bed, grabbing the patients chin to hold it still as she poured chakra into the brain. The patient's body shuddered from the intrusion but stopped its erratic thrashing and lay motionless on the bed. Blood seeped out of the bandages, and Tsunade sighed internally as she figured they were going to have to heal those again. Still, they would be nothing compared to what she would have to face outside.

Figuring she might as well get it over with, the Godaime Hokage quickly closed the newly re-opened wounds, and changed Yamanaka Ino's bandages. She re-adjusted the wires taped on the young girl's skin and checked to make sure the machines were working properly. Everything seemed fine, so Tsunade headed for the door, taking a deep breath to calm herself before stepping outside.

"Hokage-sama!"

"She's fine, Inoichi," Tsunade said, holding up a hand to placate her patient's father. He and his wife were standing in front of her, harried-looking with bags under their eyes. Behind them were the other members of the Ino-Shika-Chou group, both older and younger generation. Team 7 was there as well, although Tsunade suspected Sasuke was only there because Naruto and Sakura were.

"Is anything wrong?" Inoichi's wife asked from beside him, clutching her husband's sleeve. She was tearing up, quivering from fear and Tsunade tried not to think about how everything was her fault; about how she was the one who sent this woman's daughter on a mission all alone. But from past experiences, Tsunade knew that regrets were useless in her line of work, and that the only thing she could do now was fight with everything she had to make sure she could make this right somehow.

"She woke up," Tsunade replied, opting to go with the good news first. Everyone seemed to freeze in surprise, but she could see the hope swimming to the surface of their eyes. Chouji edged forwards, his own face hopeful but unsure because of the strangely grim expression on the Hokage's face.

"That's… that's good, right?" he asked. "She's been asleep for days; it's _good_ that she woke up, right?" He became a little hysterical at the end, and Shikamaru had to reach out and put his hand on his friend's shoulder to calm him. Tsunade sighed and crossed her arms.

"Normally, yes, it is good that she woke up," Tsunade said. "But under these circumstances, she was doing more harm to herself awake than she was asleep. Something happened that jolted her suddenly out of her comatose state; it was a shock to her system. I had to sedate her to make sure she didn't do any irreparable damage to herself." The hallway was tense with silence at her proclamation, and Ino's mother wavered on her feet.

"My baby…" she whimpered, crying. Inoichi's lips pinched together and he wrapped an arm around his wife, crying with her. "She's… so it's true? She's… my baby is…" Her knees crumpled under her weight, under the stress, under the fear and she fell in a heap on the floor. Inoichi went down with her, teeth grinding and hiding his wife's tears in his shoulder.

"I don't know yet," Tsunade said gravely, and their heads snapped up with shock. "Every time she's woken up, all she does is scream. We're not sure if this is because she is mentally unstable, or simply because of the jolt to her system." The Hokge crossed her arms and sighed. "She's woken up, yes, but never of her own volition. We're not sure why."

"Can't you find out somehow?" Shikamaru cut in harshly, his eyes gaunt and dark from many sleepless nights. Tsunade glared at his tone, but she knew what it was like to wait for someone she loved to wake up from countless injuries. There was no rationality in that period of waiting, of restlessly staring at a white wall and listening to the quiet hum and beep of the machines at your ears. You just felt stuck, like you had fallen into a lapse in the space-time continuum.

Tsunade turned away from Shikamaru's eyes, having seen them so many times she couldn't be bothered anymore (even though she was). Instead, her gaze was focused on Inoichi, who met her stare with equal parts determination and grief, a combination that was deadly in very specific situations. Luckily for her, this was not one of them.

"My expertise lie in the physical body, but I don't think that this particular case has anything to do with cuts or scrapes or chemical imbalance. I think it has to do with the mind." Inoichi caught on immediately, as Tsunade knew he would; he was an intelligent man, and that trait bled into his daughter. He stood up, his wife still clinging to him.

"Do you think there's something blocking her from waking up?" he asked, now full of determination. The sadness was gone, pushed away in the face of hope swelling inside him.

"That's exactly what I think," she said. "The trauma she suffered isn't something easily overcome. Her mind could have shut down to avoid anymore damage to her mental state. It could also be simply recovering. I want someone to look into her mind to determine what it's doing. From there, I will determine if she should be woken or not." Inoichi nodded at her explanation and stepped forward.

"I will do it," he said, and Tsunade's eyes narrowed.

"No you will not." She saw it coming, his outrage and his protests but simply held a hand up to stop him. "That girl has been violated too many times to count," she ground out harshly, not delighting in the way they all froze with shock, like she had just chakra-punched them. Everyone already knew what happened to Ino, but no one had ever dared to speak it aloud. It was like saying it out loud was confirming it, making it real and they all wanted nothing more than to stay in denial.

Tsunade forged on, clenching her hands under her sleeves. "Her body has already been invaded by a man; I will not allow her mind to be as well."

"_I'm her father!_" Inoichi roared, his throat thick with sobs and his feet staggering.

"You're still a_ man_," Tsunade countered, "and we don't know how messed up her mind is right now. We're not sure if she'll be able to differentiate friend from foe, regardless of their gender. If you go into her head, all she's going to know is that you're male, and lately they have done nothing but hurt her. If you go into her mind, she's going to fold in on herself trying to escape from you; she'd _die_."

Inoichi choked on his sobs, covering his face. He knew Tsunade was right. Although Yamanka mind jutsu's couldn't be taught, basic psychology of the mind could, and Tsunade was one of the best students he'd ever had.

"So what do you want me to do?" he asked, sucking in a deep breath to try and stop the shaking. Tsunade shifted her weight from one leg to the other, one hand on her hip.

"Don't you have a sister?" she asked him, and he nodded almost numbly.

"Yes, yes I do," he breathed, turning around. "I do have a sister, she knows the jutsu's, she can—" He mumbled to himself as he walked away from the crowd surrounding his daughter's hospital room. His wife followed him, hands on his arm, supporting him. Tsunade sat down on a nearby chair, waiting for his return and anticipating the arrival of his sister. Everyone else shuffled around in silence, anxiously waiting like they already had for so long. Only now, maybe their waiting could finally be answered.

_

* * *

Leave, leave, leave. Touch has left. Left? Gone._

_Gone. _

_Good. Yes, good. _

_No more touch. _

_No more pain. _

_No more touch. _

_No more pain. _

_Gone, gone, GONE! _

_But black is gone too. Nothingness is gone too. Shadows are gone too._

_No more, no more, no more._

_No more black. Now blue. _

_Blue._

_Lots of blue._

_Dark blue, nice blue. _

_(__**Soothing, safe, calm, tranquil—**__)_

_Nice blue. Blue is nice. Nice, nice, nice._

_Blue is… nice. Blue is… Hina?_

_Hina. Yes, Hina! Blue is Hina!_

_Hina Hina Hina Hina!_

_Where is Hina? Hina not here, just blue._

_Blue…_

_Blue is nice…_

_Hina is nice…_

_Want… want Hina. Find Hina, find Hina!_

_We must find Hina!_

* * *

Hyuuga Hinata wasn't quite sure how it ended up like this, sitting beside Yamanaka Ino at Ichiraku Ramen, subject to the scrutinising stares of the two male members of Team Ten, plus Haruno Sakura. Of everyone Ino had picked to latch onto, to turn to for safety and protection, it was Hinata. Tsunade-sama had explained that was because she was the last person Ino saw before being knocked out, and she supposed that was a good reason. Still, she had expected Sakura to be picked.

"Look!" Ino said, shoving her marker-drawn hand into Hinata's face. She smiled kindly at the blonde, pushing the hand down.

"It's very nice, Ino-chan," Hinata told her. Ino beamed and switched the marker from her right hand to her left, intent on matching them. She had quite a bit of energy for someone who was only released from the hospital yesterday, wandering extensively around Konoha, fascinated with every little thing. Hinata bought the markers in hopes that drawing would distract Ino enough that they could sit down and eat. She bought paper too, but the blonde seemed dismissive of it and more interested in drawing on herself.

"Why don't you draw on the paper?" she finally decided to ask when Ino ran out of room on her arm and started scribbling on her foot.

"Because he says I am flawless," Ino said, not looking up, "like a canvas. I am meant to be painted on." Hinata blinked in confusion, and Ino finished drawing on her foot, looking up and grinning at the Hyuuga heiress.

"He who?" Hinata asked. Ino frowned, deep in thought. She shrugged.

"I don't know. He is just he." Hinata felt a deep cold settling into her chest, wondering if 'he' was who she was thinking of. Sakura sat on the other side of Ino and also had a look of horror on her face, like she was going to be sick. Beside her, Naruto's fingers clenched on his chopsticks and Chouji stopped eating. Shikamaru sat between them, not emotion on his face, simply staring at the wall in front of him.

"What… what else does he say to you, Ino-chan?" Hinata asjed shakily, not wanting to know but somehow needing to. Ino pursed her lips in thought, rocking back and forth on her stool like a small child.

"I am sunshine," Ino said, playing with a strand of her pale blonde hair. "I am beautiful sunshine. He says sunshine must be shared, everyone must know beautiful sunshine." She smiled brightly at Hinata, and yet Hinata still felt that cold settle deeper and deeper in her stomach. Oh god, did she mean…?

"And… and _did_ he share the beautiful sunshine Ino-chan?" she asked.

"Lots and lots!" Ino exclaimed, beaming and nodding her head. "Everyday! Sometimes more than one person came to see beautiful sunshine."

The chopsticks in Naruto's hands snapped, and Sakura choked back a sob. Chouji stood up, almost breaking the counter and the stool in his haste to leave, to get rid of this anger, this grief, this guilt. After all, no one really cared if a few hundred trees went missing, right? Naruto stood up a second later to follow him, to see if they wanted to pound each other into oblivion, to see if they could escape the guilt and the anger and the sadness for just a little bit.

Sakura stood as well, a little slower, a little shakier. She muttered something about going to find Sasuke and all but bolted from the stand. Ino didn't notice the decrease of people in the stall, humming cheerily as she switched feet, drawing little squiggles on her toes. Shikamaru was the only one who stayed, that blank, apathetic expression still on his face as he stared at the wall. Ayame excused herself to hide her tears outside, her father hiding his in the ramen he was making. It would be the saltiest one that ever came out of Ichiraku Ramen.

When it was done, Shikamaru ate it. Hinata wasn't quite sure why that made her cry.

**

* * *

TBC**


	4. Please Don't Kill Her

**Psychosanity**

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**Chapter 3: Please Don't Kill Her**

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* * *

_Darkness. The last thing he remembers is darkness._

Something opens, someone grabs his arm, and he is dragged into the blinding light.

_It is bright; _

_too bright!_

He wished for it, for the light, some time ago but now he doesn't want it.

_Too bright, _

_too bright, _

_no more! _

But he hates the dark too, hates the suffocating dark and the not knowing, oh god the not knowing!

"Move it scumbag," he hears someone sneer, and whimpers as something sharp connects into his side. He hates the pain too, hates how it hurts. He thinks that this is probably how _she_ felt, and he wishes he could take it back.

_So much pain, _

_so much pain, _

_how could she stand it? _

_How did she survive?_

Arms grab him and throw him into another room, into something cold.

_Metal. _

_A metal chair? _

He remembers the shape of the chair. He remembers the cold feeling of the metal. He has been here once before but the memories are hazy.

_Hazy,_

_hazy,_

_hazy._

_So hazy…_

_The darkness makes him forget a lot of things._

There are voices speaking, but he is too disoriented to understand them, to recognize them. A door slams in the distance, and it is suddenly very quiet.

_He shivers._

A hand, a big unfamiliar hand, grabs the back of his head and forces it into the blinding light. He cries out in agony, his eyes still closed but the brightness is still hurting. He is begging, begging for the light to go away because it is too bright,

_too bright, _

_**too bright!**_

The light dims to an ethereal glow, and he opens his eyes.

_He wishes the light came back._

"Remember me?"

_Because it is the shadowman. _

* * *

His heart was pounding.

"What am I looking for?" the blonde woman asked, the shade of her hair an exact replica of her brother's. Her hands were quivering as they formed a picture frame, but there was a hardened gaze to her eyes that belied her determination. The Godaime Hokage stood off to the side of the room, in front of the doorway that he was desperately trying to peer through.

"Mental stability," Tsunade answered quietly, and his heart thrummed faster. Please let her be okay, please let her be okay, please let her be okay—

"… I understand." There was a pause, and he knew that the kunoichi was readying herself, trying to forget that this was her _niece_, her brother's daughter whom she held as a baby and spoiled with presents and took out for lunch in an attempt to get her off that _damned diet_ and oh _god_ please don't make me kill her!

And he knew that he was readying himself too, his heart so distracting as it pounded against his chest that he almost missed it; almost missed her voice. But he heard it.

"Hina?"

And his heart stopped.

She sat up on the bed, oblivious to the wires, to the machines beeping as the monitoring devices were pulled off her skin. Her hair fell around her like a pastel cloak, covering most of the bandages so it looked like she was fine. She was fine and awake and perfectly lucid and Shikamaru heard his heart beating loudly in his ears. He knew he was awake too, and he knew this wasn't a dream and thank the fucking _gods_ she was awake!

"Hina-chan?" she asked again, and that was when he saw it; just before Tsunade slammed the door on all their faces, he saw it.

Her eyes.

"Where are you Hina-chan?"

She was lost.

* * *

It is a sunny day, with a light breeze and lazily drifting clouds. The sun is warm as they drift along his black clothes, but the chill of the wind is a nice reprieve. He pays no attention to any of it, atop the grassy hill, leaning against the trunk of a large tree. His shadow hides among the shade, disgruntled at the heat of the sunlight. He lets them skitter away, unable to be bothered in light of recent events.

'_I am beautiful sunshine._'

His hands clenched against the dirt floor, and he closed his eyes, tilting his face to the sky. He knew he shouldn't have let her go on that mission, he just _knew_ it. But she was just so damn stubborn for her own good, just too damn hard-headed to listen to him. And now… now she was lost. She was gone. The Ino he knew wasn't there anymore. Now there was just an empty shell of her, a hollow cocoon with her face and her ears and her nose and her mouth and her damn _everything_!

Everything except her eyes.

He still remembered it, the moment she sat up on the hospital bed, her voice lost and child-like as she called out to a person she didn't even know all that well. There was a strange detachedness to her gaze, a gaze that could once look into your very soul but now only looked right past it. It gave her an otherworldly presence, a sense that this girl was seeing something more than just the physical world. She was seeing something much more profound, much more spiritual. And it seemed that the cost for this ethereality was to forget everything she once knew.

He grit his teeth, flinging away the stray tears falling down his cheeks, turning his face from the sky. It was too hard to look at it right now, the blue that was the same shade as her _real_ eyes. The pain was still too close, still too fresh. He didn't even know why he was up here, on this hill, staring into something that was only going to remind him and tear his heart further in two. But he stayed anyways, not looking at the sky but simply sitting in silence and watching his shadow lengthen and grow as the sun dipped into the east, immersing himself in the memories.

* * *

The door closed with a deafening click, and Inoichi sprang up from his seat. The Godaime Hokage paid his sudden movement no mind, leisurely strolling behind her desk. She sat down slowly, looking rather relaxed against the regal chair of the Hokage. There was a pause as she linked her fingers together, no doubt thinking about how to say what was needed to be said. Shikamaru admired Inoichi's restraint as he stood in front of the Hokage's desk, knowing just how distraught he was on the inside.

It was how all of them felt.

Tsunade took a deep breath. "She's insane."

Inoichi dropped to his knees. Shikamaru heard him plead with the Hokage, heard him beg with desperation and agony and love. '_Please don't kill her, please don't kill her, please don't kill her!_'

Insanity was a dangerous mental state for a normal person. It was doubly so for a ninja. Ninja who became insane often had to be put down (like a _fucking dog_) because they were a danger to both themselves and the people around them. They were usually put in an isolated area, but their unpredictability made them unstable and hard to control.

Shikamaru had remembered a time when he was still young and his father had burst into the house, ordering him and his mother to stay inside. Shikaku locked the doors, pulling the curtains closed. He had left soon after that, but not after he and Yoshino had a very heated, whispered conversation. Shikamaru didn't know what it was about, being rather young and unable to make out the mumbles of his parents, but a few years later had found out it was a ninja who had went insane. He had killed two shinobi and five civilians before Shikaku could take him down.

Because of that, the Sandaime ordered that all ninja who were declared mentally unstable had to be executed immediately for the safety of the village.

Because of that, Ino was going to die.

"Please don't kill her," Shikamaru whispered unconsciously, swaying on his feet. "Please don't kill her. Hokage-sama, please don't kill her!" His voice rose to a yell and he stepped forward, caught by Chouji when he almost fell from his shaking legs.

Tsunade looked at him grimly, recognizing this desperation flashing across his face. This was something that came after the mindless waiting. It was a cacophony of noise in his head, a never-ending stream of emotion. There was no logic in this stage, no commonsensical approach to things. Now it was all about want.

I want her to live. I want you to let her live.

_I want what I can't have. _

Shikamaru wasn't sure what did it. Maybe it was the pleas of everyone else in the room. Maybe it was because the Hokage saw that if Ino died, she would effectively kill him as well. Maybe it was out of the sympathy and kindness of her heart. Whatever it was, that day, Shikamaru knew Ino would live to see the next sunrise. And that was all he could ask for.

"I'm not going to kill her," Tsunade sighed and the room lapsed into a state of disbelief, of surrealism.

"But the Sandaime's law," Shikaku said, his voice trailing as he struggled between his desire to embrace Ino's renewed life and his firsthand experience with an insane ninja. The corpses they had found… letting something like that run free again was just not an option. Ino was a danger to the village.

"Ino is not a danger to the village," Tsunade told everyone in the room, who mumbled in shock. That couldn't be possible. The girl was a trained assassin, better than most at what she did. If _this_ had not happened, Ino would have been happily accepting her promotion and on her way to being one of the best kunoichi in the village. Tsunade saw it too, Ino's skill. That was why she had offered the young woman the promotion. Yamanaka Ino was a force to be reckoned with… but not anymore.

"It will make more sense if I show you," Tsunade told them, getting up and heading out into the hallway. She walked quickly, but not quick enough for her little pea gallery who were shifting and fidgeting and looking out for something that would point them to their destination. This clue just happened to be a simple door that their Hokage knocked on, and was answered by Hyuuga Hinata.

"Hinata-chan?" Sakura and Naruto chorused, and Hinata smiled softly and nodded in greeting at the two of them.

"Sakura-san, Naruto-kun," she turned to Tsunade, "Hokage-sama." The old woman gestured with her head, and Hinata stepped out into the hallway, shutting the door behind her.

"How is she?" Tsunade asked, and Shikamaru tensed. Ino was behind that door?

"She is well," Hinata answered in her quiet voice. "There have not been any panic attacks. Your hypothesis was correct, Hokage-sama." Tsunade nodded at that, seemingly satisfied. It also seemed to be a cue for Hinata to continue. "It is also rather peculiar. She will not hold onto any of the weapons I place in her hand. It is as if she does not even realize they exist."

"Hokage-sama, what's going on?" Inoichi demanded. "Is Hyuuga-san talking about my daughter?" Tsunade didn't answer; she couldn't, not when the door opened and a familiar blonde with glassy blue eyes poked her head out into the hallway.

"Hina-chan!" she chirped, grabbing onto the Hyuuga's hand. "Hina-chan, I did it! Here!" A piece of paper was shoved into Hinata's hand.

"Thank you, Ino-chan. Why don't you go draw some more, ne?" the heiress suggested, and Ino made a noise of agreement, giggling and rushing back inside the room. She didn't shut the door as she made her way in, displaying the white-walled room and the single desk with two chairs situated in the middle. There were papers and crayons scattered all over the floor, decorated with pictures.

Ino herself was wearing a simple white dress smeared in coloured lines, probably made from the markers and crayons lying haphazardly across the room. The markers and crayons bled from the dress onto her skin, painting her like a rainbow. She seemed to enjoy her multi-coloured skin as she sat on the floor, stretching her legs out and following the faint lines of her veins with a red marker. She did not at all notice the crowd of people gathered just outside the door, looking at her with something akin to disbelief and horror.

"What do you think, Hinata-san?" Tsunade asked, and Hinata sighed. The Hokage thought there was a lot of those going around lately, especially through her mouth. She was kind of glad to hear it from another person.

"Ino-san acts much like a young child who has not touched the gravity of war. She seems not to understand what kunai and shuriken are, and concepts like war and death and fighting do little to interest her. Ino-san is… Ino-san has effectively become a civilian, Hokage-sama," Hinata explained. Tsunade nodded.

"Yes, I believe so as well. Good work, Hinata-san." The heiress simply bowed at the praise.

"Hinata, what's that?" Sakura asked shakily, pointing at the piece of paper Hinata held in her hand. Hinata gave her a sympathetic smile and handed the pink-haired girl the paper.

"A list," Hinata told her, "of people that Ino-san remembers."

"But…" Sakura hiccupped, "but there's only one name on it… and its… its…"

Hinata bowed.

"I'm sorry, Sakura-san."

Shikamaru had this feeling that Hinata wasn't just apologizing to Sakura. He felt that she wasn't just apologizing to everyone gathered there, everyone who was riding on the coattails of hope that Ino was saved, that Ino would survive, that Ino was still with them. Shikamaru had this feeling that Hinata was apologizing—

The paper fluttered to the floor, displaying Ino's childish scrawl written with a blue crayon.

—for the very thing that Ino couldn't.

_Hina-chan._


	5. Shadowman

**Psychosanity**

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**Chapter 4: Shadowman**

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* * *

"What do you mean it's not him?" Tsunade hissed, slamming her hand on her desk. It cracked where she punched it, and Shikamaru thought faintly that Shizune was going to have fit when she realized that was the fifth desk the Hokge had broken this month. He sighed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his hands curled into fists in his pant pockets.

"It's not your damn Yenmaru," Shikamaru repeated, scowling. "That guy in your high-level prison cell is nothing more than a lackey." Tsunade growled in frustration, running a hand through her scraggly blonde hair. Sleep had evaded her the past few days, so caught up in her meetings with the elders, fighting to make sure Ino was not sentenced to execution. She had argued that the Yamanaka held vital information to the protection of the village, and that the only way to get it would be to keep her alive and try to cure her of her insanity. She was succeeding, just barely, in convincing the elders that putting Ino to death was unnecessary, practically damning to Konoha.

Then again, it helped that Shikamaru was so adamantly on her side, sitting in on the council meetings. He had saved her ass more than a few times, speaking up from his lazy slouch in the seat beside her, highlighting a point she had overlooked, turning the tide. Although he was a greenhorn as a jonin, his opinion was still highly valuable, his intellect unmatched by everyone except his own father. He was just as tired as her, maybe even more so, Tsunade mused. After all, the shadow user had devoted all his free time to paying their prisoner a visit.

"Is he at least a useful lackey?" she asked. "Have you interrogated him thoroughly?" Shikamaru opened his mouth to say yes, he talked the guy until he was choking up his own fuckin' blood, goddamnit, but there was something in him that paused. He wasn't sure what it was, a feeling he had that the prisoner wasn't spilling all of his guts (impossible, he pissed his pants every time Shikamaru so much as breathed on him), or that darkly sadistic side of himself that screamed for his suffering, his misery.

"… No, Hokage-sama," he replied softly, his eyes glittering with malice. "No, I haven't interrogated him fully."

Tsunade eyed him suspiciously, her hands linked together on the table. "Shall I call for Ibiki?" she asked him, gauging his reaction. He remained stone-cold, shaking his head.

"That won't be necessary, Hokage-sama," Shikamaru told her, "I can do it." Tsunade knew he could do it; Shikamaru was one of their better interrogators when he actually put in some effort. She was almost afraid to read his interrogation report on their prisoner, knowing that he was probably unleashing all his pent-up rage on the poor soul in the high-level cell. Nara's were always so introverted, so solitary. Oftentimes Tsunade wondered what was going through Shikaku's head since he was so hard to read. But she knew that when they let go, they_ let go._

"Shikamaru," Tsunade started slowly, warningly, "you know that we, the honourable ninja of Konohagakure, do not kill our prisoners, right?" A shiver passed through her spine as she saw Shikamaru's lips curl in a sadistic, almost psychotic smile.

"Yes, Hokage-sama," he replied, "I know that we do not kill our prisoners."

At least, not the sane ones.

* * *

Fidget.

Fidget.

Fidget.

"Ino-chan, please stop moving."

"But I'm bored," Ino whined, pouting and kicking her legs back and forth as Shizune attempted to shine a light in her eyes. The older woman sighed, stepping back and placing her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes sternly at the childlike teenager. The blonde shrunk under the stern gaze.

"Ino-chan, the faster I can get this done, the faster you can leave. Okay?" The girl nodded quickly, standing up nice and tall, not moving a bit. Shizune smiled and stepped closer, continuing the blonde's check-up. She was perfectly healthy, naturally. It had been weeks since her… incident… and her wounds had all healed up by then. Well, the physical ones anyways. The mental wounds were too damaged to repair, but the Hokage had insisted on trying even though psychological illnesses weren't her forte. The check-up was mainly a formality, as Shizune was actually measuring Ino's mental state while she did the check-up. They had to make sure she didn't show any hostile emotions or hints of gaining her kunoichi prowess back.

Shizune sighed mentally, her eyes softening a bit as Ino started to hum a cheery tune, resuming swinging her legs but keeping her upper body still. The life of a kunoichi was a hard one, but Shizune never imagined something like this happening. Rape was actually quite common for kunoichi prisoners and they had all been informed of its horrors, trained to cancel out the pain and the humiliation and violation. It didn't make it easier to deal with, but it helped with keeping the secrets of the village.

Many kunoichi ex-prisoners managed to get past it (usually with a year or two of leave and support from their family and friends) so it made Shizune wonder exactly what kind of sick bastard Ino had ended up with. The Yamanaka's were known for their strong wills, something that was genetically inherent because of their clan jutsu's, and Ino even more so because of her overall excellence as a kunoichi (who graduated top of her class).

"I'm happy it wasn't Hina-chan," Ino mused, smiling. Shizune looked up sharply, her eyes wide. Had Ino regained her memory? No, that wasn't possible. She called Hinata, "Hina-chan", and as far as Shizune knew the two kunoichi weren't exactly bosom buddies before Ino's mission.

"What do you mean Ino-chan?" she asked, faintly hearing the door click open. Ino didn't notice at all, giggling and poking at the band-aid Shizune slapped on after taking some blood samples.

"I'm happy Hina-chan isn't where I am," she replied, "sitting on this cold table."

Shizune was confused. Hinata had check-ups all the time, usually after missions. She was very much familiar with cold tables and prodding needles and bright lights. "Why do you say that?" she asked, somehow dreading the answer before it even came.

"Because then she wouldn't be here at all," Ino said sombrely, her eyes flickering to the floor. "Too much for Hina-chan, it would all be too much. The cold, the cold and the darkness and the nothingness… too much, too much, too much." Her breath came faster, almost at an alarming rate, hands shaking as they gripped the edge of the cold table. Shizune's heart leapt to her throat, and she frantically reached out to grasp Ino's hand.

"Ino? Ino! Come on Ino, listen to my voice," she said frantically, hearing the person at the door crowd into the room. "Follow my voice, Ino, come back. Its okay, its okay; I'm here. I'm here, see?" She grasped the blonde's hand with both of hers, willing it to be of help. Someone stepped up, familiar blue hair brushing her side. Hinata carefully placed her hand on Ino's free hand, her eyes sorrowful.

"Ino-chan," she murmured, and Ino jolted out of her trance. A wide smile blossomed over her face.

"Hina-chan!" she crowed, bouncing excitedly on the table. "Am I done? Can I go? Please please please please _please_?" Hinata smiled softly.

"Yes Ino, just go get your things from your room," Hinata said, barely able to get it all out when Ino rushed from the room, uncaring that she was wearing only a hospital gown. The heiress turned to look at Shizune, whose face was pale. Their eyes locked, one horrified, the other resigned and knowing.

"She's right you know," Hinata told the older medic, her eyes flickering to the floor in slight shame. "If it was me…" Her voice trailed off, but Shizune knew what she was saying. She heard the unspoken words, the 'too much' to take, the 'wouldn't be here at all'. She didn't know what to _think_, though, because right then, right then everything was numb, a stagnant cold settling into her bones. If it wasn't Ino… if it was Sakura, or Tenten, or Hinata… if it was anyone else—

A scream pierced through the halls.

Shit.

Hinata sprung into action, reacting only a split second faster than Shizune, who cursed at herself for being so distracted. They darted into the hallway, past a nurse who was blocking the entrance to Shizune's office. They raced down the hall, Hinata thanking Kami that Ino's temporary room wasn't that far from the office. She could see Ino up ahead, cowering on the floor in the fetal position as a panicked male medic nin backed up, his hands in the air.

"I barely touched her!" he defended frantically to the accusing stares of the other medics. Hinata ignored him, figuring he'd get enough flak later from Tsunade-sama, and dropped to her knees beside Ino. She put her hand on the blonde's shoulder, already feeling the effects of her touch as Ino's shivering lessened. Above her, Shizune shooed people away, sending the male nurse to her office.

"Ino-chan?" Hinata asked softly, sensing Shizune kneel down just behind her, to the left. They watched as Ino peeked her head up, her large blue eyes wide with terror. "Ino-chan, it's me. It's Hina-chan."

"Hina-chan?" Ino sniffled. She sat up slowly, grasping desperately at Hinata's hand. "Hina-chan, it was so cold," she whimpered as she shut her eyes tightly. So very, very cold. Why did it suddenly get so cold? Ino didn't know, and it scared her. But Hina-chan was here now, and it was warm with Hina-chan and the nice lady with the soft hands behind her, and so she shuffled towards them, seeking the warmth. "Why was it so cold?"

Hinata enfolded Ino in her arms, offering comfort as the girl quaked and shivered as she remembered her brief relapse. "I don't know," she whispered to the blonde, rubbing her back soothingly. "I don't know, Ino-chan."

But she did know.

* * *

Shikamaru stood to the side of the room, his eyes shadowed as Tsunade slammed her hands down on her desk. Another crack appeared, but Shizune was unruffled by it, her focus entirely on the male medic nurse she had dragged into the Hokage's office.

"_What_ did I specifically say, Toriyama?" Tsunade snarled out, her eyes narrowed. Toriyama sweated bullets, his eyes trained on the floor as he let the Hokage's fury wash over him. That was really the only way a ninja could deal with the Godaime's wrath, let it burst out and just take it, tolerate it, endure it. Arguing with her when she was like this spelled death.

"I'm sorry, Hokage-sama," he said, his hands clenched at his sides. Tsunade let out a noise of frustration, covering her face with her hand. Shikamaru could see the stress wearing away at her, the conflict from the council and the pressure of finding a cure pressing harder and harder on her everyday. The slightest hints of crow's feet wrinkled at the corners of her eyes.

"Is she okay?" Tsunade asked after a moment of silence. This was when Shizune stepped forward, her gaze cool.

"She was shaken up by the incident, Tsunade-sama," the medic reported, making Toriyama wince with shame again. That was a bit of an understatement. "However, Hyuuga-san was thankfully there and with my help, we managed to calm her. She left the hospital with Hyuuga-san a few minutes ago." Tsunade sighed rubbing her hand tiredly over her face and over her head. Shikamaru knew how she felt, knew what she was thinking. They were trying to heal Ino, but these relapses weren't helping with the process.

"Toriyama," Tsunade barked out sharply, making him jump and then grimace when she turned her glare on him. "Get back to the hospital, finish your rounds. This is your first infraction, so I will let it slide," Shikamaru bristled inwardly at that – he wanted Toriyama punished for causing Ino pain, "but the next time Ino comes for her weekly check-up, _stay away from her_. Walk on the other side of the damn hallway when you see her coming, don't even _look_ at her, is that clear?"

Toriyama nodded stiffly, trying to wet his parched mouth. "Y-yes, Hokage-sama," he stuttered, shuddering a bit under the shadow ninja's intense stare. The medic nin was dismissed curtly, and he all but ran from the office. Shizune followed him at a much more sedated pace, closing the door behind her as she left. When the door clicked closed, Tsunade let out a heavy sigh and slumped against her chair.

"We should put out a warning to the village," Shikamaru told her. Tsunade sighed tiredly.

"I think every man in Konoha already knows not to touch Ino," she said, giving him a pointed look. He shrugged. Watching Ino scream bloody murder in the middle of the town square was sure to do it for the women too, especially when she freaked out because some guy touched her shoulder. Although he had a feeling the Hokage was talking about after that, when he almost choked the man to death with his shadows in retribution. The Hokage had to suspend him from missions for a few months because of that, but he supposed it was to her advantage. Now he was her lap dog for the next few months, helping her play politician with the elders. Ugh. Troublesome.

"Get anything from our prisoner?" Tsunade asked, hesitating before she asked. The shadow nin shrugged, smirking.

"Still working on him," he replied. There were bags under his eyes and she bet that if she poked him in the right place, he'd fall right over. Rolling her eyes at his report (still working on him my ass), Tsunade shooed Shikamaru out of her office.

"Get some sleep," she ordered as the door closed, sighing and looking down at the document on her desk. She twirled her pen as she read Shizune's report, a slight frown at her lips.

_Patient: Yamanaka Ino_

_In for: check-up_

_Illnesses/Injuries/Issues: Mental instability_

_The patient _(they always referred to them as 'the patient'. It made it easier to deal with) _is in perfect physical health. There are no changes to her psyche, although she did have a mild panic attack near the end of the appointment. The patient's guardian _(that would be Hinata) _was there to calm her down, so it is nothing serious. However, during the patient's panic attack, she kept mentioning that it was 'too much', that there was 'too much cold' and 'too much darkness' and 'too much nothingness'. This statement was further reiterated during the incident in the hallway. These might be what the patient feels during her relapses, but that is merely my observation. _

_Shizune_

The Godaime leaned back into her chair, tapping the folder and the report with a steady rhythm. Cold, dark, and nothing. Cold, dark, and nothing.

_Cold, dark, and nothing_.

* * *

Ino stumbled along, humming under her breath as she followed the dirt road, wondering where it led. Perhaps somewhere quiet? It was very noisy in the market, Ino thought. She rather liked the quiet more. Quiet meant no one was there with her, no one to visit her, no one who wanted to be in the beautiful sunshine. Ino very much liked the quiet, very much so indeed.

It was getting darker, the sun setting in rays of orange and red and yellow. The shadows lengthened, stretching across the road, and Ino giggled as she turned and caught sight of one behind her. She reached out, watching the shadow do the same and wagged her fingers. Gasping, Ino stopped, and then did it again. She laughed out loud, waving her hand. "Hello there!" she greeted, "who are you?" The shadow didn't reply, and Ino 'hmm'ed. "Are you shy?" Ino bobbed her head up and down, and then smiled widely. "Oh, well that's okay. You don't have to tell me your name," she told it, and then thought for a moment. "Shall I give you a name?" The shadow bobbed its head again, and Ino giggled. "Right! Um… how about, Shadow-chan?" The shadow jumped with joy, and Ino giggled. "Okay, it's nice to meet you Shadow-chan! Let's go!"

Happy that she made a new friend, Ino spun and skipped down the road, wondering if Hina-chan was done in the marketplace. She wanted to introduce Shadow-chan to her, but she didn't want to go back to that noisy place. Hina-chan could always find her later, Ino supposed, but she kind of wanted to introduce Shadow-chan to someone now. Shadow-chan was being brave enough to come up and say hi to her! Maybe she would make a new friend too, if Ino could find someone.

Looking up from the grassy hill she was climbing, Ino brightened as she caught sight of another shadow human on the grass. Maybe this shadow could be Shadow-chan's friend!

Excited, Ino rushed forward, giggling as she dropped beside a stunned Shikamaru. She waved.

"Hello Shadowman!"


	6. Hello, Goodbye

**Psychosanity**

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**Chapter 5: Hello, Goodbye**

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* * *

The first time it happened, Hinata wasn't too sure what it was.

"Ino-chan, maybe some takoyaki would be a nice treat?" she said, peering at the octopus balls as the food vendor cooked them. Ino hadn't eaten anything at Ichiraku's – she simply played with her markers and ignored the bowl of ramen in front of her – so Hinata thought maybe something else would entice Ino to eat. They made their way to the market, leaving Shikamaru behind at the ramen stall. The two of them passed a lot of restaurants and vendors, but the takoyaki place was where Ino stopped. She had paused in mid-step, sniffing the air curiously, before ambling closer to the stall. The vendor had asked her if she wanted some, but he was a man and so she didn't hear him. (Hinata made a note of that in her mind; deaf to males.) Hinata had quickly taken over, hoping he wouldn't notice Ino's peculiarity. She had just ordered two sets of takoyaki (six pieces came in each set) when she felt it.

Normal ninja can't sense chakra. In some situations, like when there was an intense amount of chakra in a nearby vicinity, the pressure of that chakra could be felt. But most ninja in normal situations cannot, unless they are sensory-types like Karin. The only chakra a ninja senses is his own, because it's a part of him. Even then, the chakra can only be felt if he was using it for a jutsu. And Hinata was doubly sure, in that instant she reached out to accept the two sets of takoyaki, that her chakra twinged a bit.

In the same instant, there was the echo of a scream piercing through the crowd.

Surprised, Hinata turned, dropping the takoyaki as Ino crashed into her, shaking violently. "Ino-chan?" she murmured, wrapping her arms around the other girl. She was distracted from comforting Ino when there was a commotion up ahead, and someone pushed through the crowd, eyes wide with terror.

"Someone..." they burst out, tripping and falling to their knees. "Someone stop him!" The woman fell at Hinata and Ino's feet, begging and pleading, her brown eyes awash with tears. The crowd had fallen to the side, to give way for her, leaving Hinata a clear view to the commotion on the other end of the market, sending ice through her veins. "Please! He'll kill my husband – someone please!"

"What's going on?" A newcomer asked, and Hinata didn't have to turn to know it was Naruto. She could barely speak, but when Naruto caught sight of what had her so dumbfounded, he took the words right out of her mouth.

"Shikamaru what the hell!" he shouted, rushing headlong into the rookie jonin in order to break his concentration and by extension, his Kagemane. Chouji was right behind Naruto, helping to hold Shikamaru back when he lunged towards the man after his jutsu dispersed. The man, just a civilian, dropped to the ground, choking and coughing violently until blood spilled from his lips. His wife crawled back to him, cradling him gently, crying out his name through her tears.

"You monster!" she shouted at Shikamaru. "He didn't even do anything!" She hugged her husband to her chest, shielding him from Shikamaru with her body. Her voice had knocked sense into Shikamaru, and he jolted as if snapped awake. Her words, her reprobation of his actions gave him little pause, because he turned to look at Hinata and Ino. The genius stepped forward, to head towards them, but he saw the shaking in Ino's shoulders, the way she clung to Hinata and the way Hinata rubbed her back soothingly. He changed his mind, retracted his steps and allowed Naruto and Chouji to pull him out of the market, to detain him in case he was still a threat to public safety. (Later, Tsunade would deem him emotionally unstable, and demand he work under her for an unspecified length of time until she deemed him stable enough for active duty.)

The whole ordeal sent flames of gossip around Konoha, and Shikamaru's reputation began to waver. It was the biggest scandal of the year: Genius Rookie Jonin Almost Kills Innocent Civilian. Hinata didn't think any of them realized what had set him off, because the cause of his rage had disappeared the moment her mouth had shrilled loudly through the market. And she reappeared in Hinata's arms.

Later, Hinata would come to realize what exactly happened that day. She would learn that during her brief conversation with the takoyaki vendor, Ino had wandered off deeper into the marketplace, and she would manage to make it quite a length away from Hinata before accidentally brushing against a man and his wife strolling leisurely past her. The slight touch sent Ino into hysterics, alerting the rookie jonin carefully watching her from nearby. And then Ino would disappear so suddenly that it was like she was never there at all.

* * *

No matter how many times she walked these streets, they still all looked the same to her.

Temari stopped in mid-step, silently casting her eyes around the street in hopes of recognizing a landmark. Behind her was Gaara and Kankuro, the latter scowling but the former unconcerned. "Hey, where the hell are we going?" Kankuro asked his sister, who tensed under the question.

"It's not much farther," she told him through gritted teeth, trying not to seem like she was totally clueless about their current location. But her hesitation to go anywhere was the hint that her brothers needed to be reassured that she did, in fact, not know where she was going. If Gaara had been given a chance to speak, he would have handled his sister's cluelessness in a tactful and neutral way by suggesting that they should jump on the rooftops instead of trying to get to the Hokage Tower by foot. But Kankuro was always quicker with his mouth, and much less tactful.

"You're lost," he said bluntly, with an edge of incredulity. Then, he started laughing, which only proved to upset the situation when Temari grabbed her fan and tried to whack him with it. "Oh man, how many times have you been here Temari? This is pathetic!" he guffawed, easily dodging his sister's futile attempts to knock him into a coma. Gaara sighed mentally as he tried very hard not to throttle his siblings.

"Shut up Kankuro!" Temari snarled, a vein popping from her forehead. "It's not my fault everything in this place looks the same!" But Kankuro continued to laugh, and the situation only escalated. It was thankful, then, that Gaara noticed the girl sitting pleasantly under the tree, in the shade where the light was dimmer. She was curiously silent, but it was her movements that drew his eye to her, it was the shadows that danced across her skin.

He didn't bother acknowledging his siblings, but when Gaara began to walk towards this girl, Temari and Kankuro took notice. (Gaara hardly ever did anything unless there was a purpose.) "Excuse me," he asked as he neared. Getting closer to the girl sparked his memory. She was familiar, but only in the shallowest of ways.

Gaara often dwelled on the chunin exams; how could he not? It was the greatest turning point of his life, a moment when he finally began to think outside of himself, to embrace the humanity and community that was deprived of him for so long. But there was not much he remembered of the other exam-takers. He only took note of those he deemed worthy of a challenge, and a slight little blonde who talked too loud was no challenge at all. So it was only this facade that he remembered of her; the brat in purple who draped herself all over Uchiha Sasuke and argued with Sakura. Staring at her now, Gaara wasn't even sure she was the same person.

"Hey, isn't this Shikamaru's teammate?" Kankuro asked his sister, who was staring at Ino with a mix of confusion and scrutiny. The girl seemed totally unaware of their presence, tracing pictures into the dirt with her finger, clothed in a dirtied white t-shirt and purple shorts. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, delicate strands of white-gold strewn together in tangled waves. There were smudges of dirt everywhere on her, like her cheek and the pulse point on her wrist and in between her barefoot toes.

"I... think so," Temari answered her brother uncertainly. She had met the Yamanaka before, during the times Shikamaru was appointed to show her around. The blonde never stayed longer than a few minutes, and she was nice enough, but still much too loud for Temari's taste.

"Hey, Yamanaka right?" Kankuro asked, stepping forward, joining his shadow with the shade of the tree. Ino blinked at the ground where his shadow met the tree's shadow, and started to move slowly, like an animal that had realized it was being stalked by a predator. "Can you show us the way to the Hokage Tower?" he asked, but she didn't reply. Her eyes started to widen, and her shoulders hunched down, like she was trying to make herself disappear. Temari knew that something was wrong when Kankuro reached out to wave his hand in front of her face and she didn't respond. The lack of reaction frustrated Kankuro, and his voice started to rise. "Hey! Are you deaf or something?" He reached out again, but this time with the intent to grab her shoulder.

"Kankuro—" Temari started, trying to warn her brother to stop, but the words didn't come out fast enough for Shikamaru, who appeared so suddenly that Kankuro didn't realize who flung him to the other side of the street until the dust cloud cleared.

"What the fuck—" Kankuro shouted, only to let his breath catch in his throat when she saw the dark, furious gaze that was levelled at him. It didn't scare him because Kankuro had seen dozens of gazes of killer intent from dozens of different ninja; some stronger, some weaker. It was surprise that caught his breath, because he never expected Shikamaru, a person he considered a comrade, to send him a look filled with so much animosity.

"I'll forgive you this time because you didn't know," Shikamaru said, his voice echoing eerily in the Sand Trio's ears. There was pain and loss there, a tiredness that weighed it down, but a darkness that strengthened it. Behind him, Ino loosened up. She went back to drawing pictures in the dirt, humming a tune that sounded like a child's song.

"Didn't know what?" Temari asked Shikamaru, shifting to stand beside Kankuro as he regained his footing. Shikamaru may be her ally and friend, but Kankuro was her brother, and family came first. Gaara seemed troubled as well by Shikamaru's comment, his gaze cycling back from Shikamaru to Ino and back to Shikamaru.

"Shikamaru!" someone called, and all five of them turned to look at Hinata running towards them. For the first time since noticing her, Temari saw Ino display a shadow of the loudness and enthusiasm she was known and remembered for.

"Hina-chan!" she shouted with happiness, running towards her with outstretched arms. Hinata caught her gently, allowing the blonde to hang onto her. "Hina-chan, where were you? I was waiting," she said, seeming to dance in place as she swayed from side to side. Now that she had spotted the Hyuuga, the blonde couldn't stay still. She went up onto her tippy toes, then rolled back to settle her weight on the balls of her feet. Her hands wrapped around Hinata's, and they were the centre of the pendulum that she swung back to.

"I should be asking you that, Ino-chan," Hinata said. She turned to the Sand Trio, bowing shallowly. "Hello. Welcome back to Konohagakure." Ino seemed puzzled as she turned towards the three people Hinata greeted. Her eyes passed right over Gaara and Kankuro, but she zeroed in on Temari.

"Hina-chan, do you know this _nee-san_?" she asked, her swaying finally stopping as she noticed the newcomer. Temari was surprised at how Ino addressed her. Didn't she know who Temari was? They'd met countless times before, not to mention she hadn't even bothered to acknowledge Kankuro, or Gaara, who was the Kazekage!

"Ah, yes, Ino this is a friend from another village called Suna. Do you remember where that is?" Hinata asked, and Ino frowned.

"No," Ino shrugged nonchalantly. "But it sounds like a boring place." The Sand siblings couldn't find themselves to be indignant at the slight to their home village, not when confusion was paramount in this bizarre situation. Hinata hurriedly apologized for Ino, bowing again.

"Please forgive her," Hinata said hurriedly. "She's not... herself."

"No shit," Kankuro said, and Temari didn't have to do much thinking for her hand to reach out and slap her brother across the back of the head.

"Thank you for finding her Shikamaru," Hinata said, turning to the dark-haired jonin. "I don't know how I keep losing her." He didn't respond because his eyes were trained on Ino, listening to her hum. "Come on Ino-chan, let's go find Sakura." Ino tilted her head to the side, trying to remember who 'Sakura' was. She reluctantly allowed herself to be tugged away, but stopped. Her hand slipped out of Hinata's, the other girl staring at her in confusion. "Ino?" she asked, but Ino ignored her, and turned around to skip back towards the group of ninja still standing around the tree. She headed for Shikamaru, and given a clear look at her, Temari finally saw the pale blue of her eyes. There was no clarity in them, just a daze that didn't seem to lift.

"Bye-bye Shadowman!" Ino exclaimed heartily, much like a child would. She waved at the ground, addressing Shikamaru's shadow. The action unsettled the three Sand ninja, but Shikamaru looked only resigned to it. As testament to his promotion to jonin, Shikamaru's shadow began to quiver and rise from the ground, even though he didn't form any hand seals. The shadow hand came to rest on Ino's cheek, softly and gently. Ino smiled happily at the touch that wasn't a touch at all.

As she reached up to cradle his shadow hand, Shikamaru thought for a moment that perhaps the real Ino had come back. The smile on her face was so familiar, and her eyes bespoke of something deep and resonant. The real Ino would look at him like that sometimes, during the days he brooded over failures and expectations and the stress of so much work. But the smile passed, and the moment was gone, and Shikamaru left his shadow hand dissolve into the hot Konoha air.

Shikamaru watched her leave, skipping to Hinata's side, grabbing Hinata's hand again. Behind him, Temari and her brothers just kept staring on in cluelessness, all three of them eager for answers but hesitant to ask for them. They looked to each other for answers, as if one of them would magically know them. The questions would be unanswered until an hour later, after Shikamaru guided them to the Hokage. She was more than forthcoming about the situation, eager for any possible help.

"I'm sorry Hokage-sama, but we do not know much of the mind in Suna," Gaara replied. "But what of the man you captured during the rescue?" Gaara asked, looking deep in thought. Even he could tell that the Godaime Hokage was worn at the seams with stress, and hoped that perhaps there was something else he could do to make her life marginally easier.

Tsunade sighed deeply, before turning her head to Shikamaru. He was slouched against the wall beside the Hokage's desk, and was more or less completely emotionless during Tsunade's retelling of Ino's situation. But now, with the spotlight on him, Temari could see the ragged look in his eyes, the hardness that came over him when he thought of the man they captured for interrogation. And later, when he unclenched his fists, Temari would see a flash of red where he dug his fingernails into his skin.

"He's been dealt with," Shikamaru said, his voice toneless.

"He's dead," Tsunade clarified, shooting Shikamaru a reprimanding look. Gaara was mildly surprised. Temari wondered why she looked at Shikamaru. Dread started to settle in her stomach.

"Hokage-sama, I thought Konoha did not kill their prisoners," he said. Tsunade rubbed her forehead, leaning over her desk, wishing to god that she had a bottle of Sake in her hand right then.

"We do not kill _sane_ prisoners, Kazekage-sama," she said. But Gaara was still confused.

"Was this man insane when you captured him?" he asked. Tsunade paused in answering, her entire body tensing for just the slightest second. But that second was enough for Shikamaru to speak up for her, his voice echoing through the room in such monotony that Temari shivered with horror.

"No, he wasn't."

* * *

"Alright then, I'll be back in an hour. Thank you, Sakura-san."

Sakura tried to pretend she wasn't a complete wreck when Hinata left her apartment, but as she thought, it was useless when Ino was staring curiously at the door where Hinata disappeared. The blonde was sitting on her fuzzy carpeted rug, still clad in her dirty white shirt and purple shorts. For lack of any other ideas, Sakura decided that even if Ino was... this way... she absolutely could not let the blonde wreck her precious white carpet. On the inside, they were still the same person, right?

"N-now, Ino, let's go clean you up. You're so dirty!" She tried to sound happy, imitating her kindergarten teacher from her childhood. Ino looked at Sakura curiously. The confusion in her expression was so blatant and disturbing, and Sakura tried not to show how badly it unsettled her. Instead, she made a "come here" motion with her hands. "Come on, Ino. It's unladylike to be so dirty, you know?" She laughed nervously, and Ino was so glad when Ino finally got up, padding quietly over to her side.

Shaking, Sakura grabbed Ino's hand and tugged her towards the washroom, where she flipped the lid of the toilet down and told Ino to sit. Ino's normally impeccable blonde hair was tangled and loose around her shoulders, and there were a few stray leaves and branches sticking out. Sakura attacked those first, taking away the ones she could easily grab and brushing away the smaller ones with the large brush in her medicine cabinet. Ino remained as still as a doll, and there were times Sakura thought she really was one. The only telltale signs of her life was her gentle breath and the imperceptible rise and fall of her chest.

Sakura gradually grew more relaxed as the minutes passed, letting her fingers luxuriate in Ino's hair, trailing them down the exorbitant length of white-blonde strands. She never told Ino how jealous she was of her hair. Sakura didn't allow herself to have long hair; it was tedious to take care of, and she simply didn't have the time to care for it. So whenever she saw Ino skipping down the streets of Konoha, her hair swinging gracefully behind her, Sakura would always feel this little pang of longing.

Sakura tied Ino's hair back when she was done; not in a higher ponytail like Ino always did, but a lower one at the nape of her neck. She brushed Ino's bangs behind her ear, and then took a wet washcloth and started to clear her cheeks of dirt. She was reminded of the days in the hospital when the pediatric section was her responsibility for the day. Some of the children needed to be hand-bathed because their injuries left them bedridden.

"There," Sakura said, smiling at Ino. "All done." Ino blinked, slowly, looking at her clear arms and touching her soft hair. The confusion was still there in her eyes, but it didn't to unsettle Sakura as much anymore. Because with Ino all cleaned and looking as pretty as always, Sakura could pretend that her rival and best friend was the one sitting on her toilet seat. "Come on, Ino," she said cheerfully, pulling her up. "Let's go see if we can find some paper and markers for you to draw with."

They ventured back into the living room where Sakura dug around in her drawers for a set of markers and paper. Ino stood and watched her, until deciding what she was doing looked rather fun. She reached for the drawer closest to her, which happened to be the drawer of the coffee table. She reached in, pulling out a manila folder. Her grip on it was too light, and she ended up scattering the cluster of loose papers that were inside it.

"Ah..." she said, catching Sakura's attention. Ino bent down, picking up one of the papers. There was a lot of writing on it, and sentences and words that had been scratched and scribbled out. Across the top of the papers was a word that caught Ino's eye. "Party?" she said, looking up at Sakura, who was shocked that Ino actually said something to her.

"O-oh, umm, this is... well I was just..." Sakura said, fidgeting. She had taken over the party-planning when Ino went on her mission, making sure to send out invitations and talking to the Akimichi family and planning decorations. She had completely forgotten about the party once she was sent on the mission to rescue Ino, and was now a bit embarrassed that this Ino had found it.

Ino looked down at the piece of paper, and noticed her name preceding the word 'party'. "There is a party for me?" she asked Sakura, before her face widened into a huge smile. She jumped up, still clutching the paper in her hand, her smile so wide and bright. "Yay! A party!" she exclaimed in joy. Ino flung herself at Sakura, crashing the medic nin into the floor. "Thank you Forehead-chan!"

Sakura froze, before pushing Ino off her and glaring. "Sh-shut up Ino-_buta_-chan!" After realizing what she said, Sakura slapped her hand over her mouth, horrified. She had reacted on instinct after hearing that nickname, because she and the old Ino had always thrown insults at each other. But this was not the old Ino, this was the new Ino, and there was no telling how new Ino would react to her insult.

"_Buta_?" Ino wondered. Then she giggled and started to imitate the sound of a pig, oinking and crawling around Sakura's carpet on all fours. "Pig, pig, piggy pig pig," she chanted after she got bored of oinking, sitting on her heels and bouncing to the beat of a silent song. "Piggy-chan, piggy-chan. Hello Forehead-chan, my name is Piggy-chan!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I like my name! It makes me feel warm."

Ino placed her hands over her heart, to show where that warm feeling came from. She closed her eyes, savouring for a moment. When it was gone, she opened her eyes and saw something glistening on Sakura's face. "Forehead-chan?" she asked, reaching out to touch the wetness on the other girl's face. Sakura laughed.

"Ino-buta-chan," Ino tilted her hear curiously at Sakura, "Let's... let's have lots and lots of fun at the party, okay?" Ino smiled brightly and nodded her head, and it seemed like her eyes looked clearer than they did before.

"Un!"

* * *

_A/N_ I have an excuse, I swear.

Use of Japanese words (because I strangely used them in this chapter... I don't normally do that because I don't like mixing English and Japanese words.)

Takoyaki: Octopus balls. They taste better than they sound, I swear.

_Nee-san_: Literally, 'sister', but obviously Temari and Ino aren't related. Nee-san can also be used to refer to a female stranger, whic is the context Ino is using this in.

Buta: Means 'pig'. Ino-buta-chan is what Sakura calls Ino in the Japanese version of Naruto.

On a final note, (to stop you from killing me) I love you guys? :D

Snowflake Flower


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